Court halts eviction of SDA Church

Jan 07, 2016

Mutabazi had sought for an order for a retrial of his case, saying that a number of facts concerning his case against the church had been twisted

THE Court of Appeal has dismissed a case in which a Norway-based Ugandan, Jacob Mutabazi, had sought to evict part of the Seventh Day Adventist Church from a piece of land at Kireka, which he alleged belonged to his late father, Enock Mwambali.

 

Alternatively, Mutabazi had sought for an order for a retrial of his case, saying that a number of facts concerning his case against the church had been twisted.

 

However, the court ruled that it could not grant the order for a retrial of the case, because the appellant had failed to prove that his father owned any land anywhere on the SDA Church land.

 

Mutabazi, however, told New Vision on phone from Norway that he had instructed his lawyers Nkurunziza and Company Advocates to appeal to the Supreme Court against the whole judgment.

 

However, the court noted that even the appellant's witness, Jonathan Baziga, had also testified that he could not know how his father, Mwambali acquired the suit-land, which confirmed that he had failed to prove ownership of the property.

 

Justices Remmy Kasule, Solomy Balungi-Bbosa and Geoffrey Kiryabwire presided over the court.

 

The court noted that there was conflicting evidence on record as to how the appellant's late father Mwambali came to acquire customary interest in the suit property, noting that one version was that he was a tenant at Samson Kalete's houses, while the other stated that Mwambali owned a plot on the land.

 

The court agreed with the trial court's ruling that although the appellant claimed that he had a plot (kibanja) interest in the suit-land, no evidence was adduced to prove customs of the area with regard to acquisition of the property.  

 

Mutabazi had appealed on four grounds in which he had faulted the trial court of failure to conduct proper proceedings when it visited the place where his father allegedly had the kibanja (Plot). Mutabaazi had told the court that his father, who died in 1974, owned a kibanja measuring 1.620 hectares.  

 

He had also alleged that the trial court had misdirected itself on the law relating to the existing customary tenancies on public land and; he had also accused the trial court of failure to declare that the church had acquired the land title at Kireka fraudulently.

 

However, the court rejected all the four grounds of appeal and ordered Mutabazi to pay the costs of the appeal to the church.

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